


overture in d# minor

by officiumdefunctorum



Series: survivors still dance (a Star Trek suite in various keys) [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Grief, Guilt, Missing Scenes, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Pre-Slash, Responsibility, Self-Blame, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers, but shit happens, gratuitous use of classical music terms, jim doesn't believe in no-win scenarios, kind of?, more like missing year of lapsed time, part one, the movie glossing over Khan crashing the vengeance into San Fransisco, this series will be enormous when it's finished
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:53:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officiumdefunctorum/pseuds/officiumdefunctorum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jim wakes up; he missed a few things while he was dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part one of a series in development. Movements may be edited, reposted, renamed or consolidated as new parts are finished. The movies don't give much information in terms of when things happen, so I picked a date to suit my purposes. Eh. It's fic, right?
> 
> Summary description of D# minor source can be found [here](http://www.wmich.edu/mus-theo/courses/keys.html).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _D# Minor_
> 
>  
> 
> _Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depression, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible D# minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key._

 

  
overture in d# minor  
  
(The plagency of failure)

Chapter 1

* * *

_(Because you are my friend.)_

They were the last words he ever thought he would hear, his hand pressed to the glass where Spock’s formed the _ta’al_ against his own.

 _This is it_ , he’d thought. Dying, hurting, angry and so _scared_.

He didn’t want to die.

But Spock was there with him, and that meant his ship was okay. The rest of his crew would be okay. He’d fixed the god damn warp core, and _Spock_ and _Bones_ and _his crew_ were going to be okay.

But James Tiberius Kirk was going to die.

_(I’m scared, Spock.)_

Needless to say, waking up had been one huge fucking surprise.

It felt like the whole mess on the _Enterprise_ had been a dream, seeing Bones there in his pressed, white doctor’s uniform looking like the cat that ate the canary; Spock wearing a surprisingly smug expression on his blank features.

He was alive.

He was _alive_?

What. The actual. Hell.

Bone’s perfunctory explanation of something about Khan’s blood and synthesizing a serum and being out for two weeks swam around in his brain. He’d been laid out for a few days before, and remembered coming to feeling like death warmed over, but now he actually _was_ death warmed over, and he’d been out for nearly fifteen.

And he felt… fine. Mostly. It was really confusing.

He didn’t have any aches, maybe some stiffness from lack of movement, and his brain was having a really hard time focusing on fucking anything. He was weak, like moving his arms or his head or speaking took a great amount of willpower, but he didn’t _hurt_.

The fuzz was starting to clear, and with it, the euphoric sense of not being dead started to give way to a startling sense of hollowness. He tried to will it back, but couldn’t really stop his expression from falling. Things just felt… off.

Jim saw Bones cast Spock a meaningful look before he excused himself to go get Jim some water and “proper damn clothes”.

Unable to force a smile or a wink out of himself, he just laid back on hospital biobed and stared up at the ceiling.

Spock stood by his bed, the weight of their last encounter sitting heavily between them.

“Spock—”

“Captain—”

They spoke over each other, and this time Jim did smile, starting first.

“Unless you take back what you said,” he started, meeting Spock’s dark brown eyes, “you really need to call me Jim. You were doing so good before.”

Spock didn’t hesitate. “I do not retract what I said aboard the _Enterprise_ before you…” Spock looked down and to the side in an uncharacteristic display of reticence.

“Died,” Jim finished for him with a wry smile.

“An unfortunate circumstance I am pleased was not permanent,” Spock answered.

Jim’s lips twitched in amusement. “Yeah. But seriously, Spock. I’ve asked you enough times already,” he looked at the Vulcan standing beside his bed, suddenly more insistent than he’d ever felt before. “Especially when I’m laid out in a biobed, just call me Jim.”

“I shall endeavor to do so when we are off duty, Jim.” He barely emphasized the last word, but it was enough to bring a smile to Jim’s face again, before it abruptly fell.

Right, duty. Great way to bring his thoughts back to his last actions as Captain of the _Enterprise_.

Spock’s stance shifted minutely, and Jim knew that Spock had ascertained the direction his brain was going.

“How many?” He whispered hoarsely, needing to know, if unsure how well he’d be able to keep it together with his brain still seeing things through frosted glass.

Spock visibly hesitated. “Dr. McCoy has informed me that discussion of the events so early in your recovery would be—”

“Commander,” Jim bit out, closing his eyes but assuming Spock was standing at attention. “How _many_?”

Assuming a more formal posture, Spock averted his gaze to stare straight ahead. “The incident on the _Enterprise_ resulted in eighty-six dead, and ten with injuries debilitating them from continuing their service at this juncture,” he recited.

Jim’s stomach suddenly felt filled with rocks. He opened and then closed his eyes again, blowing a heavy breath out of his nose. His head swam, but his racing thoughts alighted on one thing, and he almost laughed at the irony of it.

“You know,” Jim started, breaking the heavy silence. “One of the things I told Pike that day when he was reaming me out after that shit on Nibiru was that I hadn’t lost anybody.” Jim stared at the ceiling. “I’ve never had to send a death notification before.”

“You will not have to,” Spock said.

Jim gave him a confused look. “What?”

Spock secured his hands behind his back as he answered. “Starfleet regulation dictates that death notifications be made within four hours of confirmation, or, as in the case of the _Enterprise_ , the earliest reasonable juncture. As you have been incapacitated for nearly sixteen days, it fell upon me as Acting Captain to purvey the notifications.”

Rather than relief, Jim actually felt his heart sink further at Spock’s words. Right. He’d been out for two weeks, of course Spock—his Vulcan first officer, with all the tact of a homeschooled adolescent—would have sent the letters.

“Did you—I mean…” Jim fiddled with the blanket in his lap as he chose his words. “What did you say? In the letters?”

“Starfleet provides a template for crewmembers killed in the line of duty—”

“A _template_?” Jim balked, unable to restrain his reaction.

“However,” Spock continued over his interruption, “Dr. McCoy informed me that it is customary for such letters to be more personal and descriptive in nature. In recognition of my weakness in this regard, I requested the assistance of the doctor, surviving department heads and Lt. Uhura in customizing each notification.” Spock paused. “She assured me that the letters did justice to the fallen that a template could not provide.”

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Jim nodded once. “That was,” he coughed to cover the crack in his voice. “That was good of you. And Uhura and Bones. I, uh—thanks,” he finished lamely, giving Spock a wan smile.

Spock returned the nod, but remained silent as they waited for McCoy’s return, leaving Jim to his wool-gathering once more.

Eighty-six. He’d gotten eighty-six of his crew killed by fucking it all up. He wasn’t fool enough to deny that Marcus and Khan were the antagonists in the whole god-awful mess, the “bad guys”, but he’d more than played his part.

Both of them had played him like a fiddle, and he hadn’t been smart enough to see it, to keep up. He was supposed to be the young, genius captain—the savior of Earth. And where had it gotten him?

“Fuck,” Jim breathed, saying almost to himself. “I got eighty-six people killed, Spock. _Eighty-six_.”

“You are not personally responsible—”

“Yes, I am.” Jim clenched his fists in the fabric of the blanket. “I’m the Captain. I’m responsible for my crew, who wouldn’t have even been there if I hadn’t _volunteered_ for the fucking mission. The whole mess was my fault—”

“Illogical.” Spock cut him off.

“Excuse me?” Jim asked, surprised.

“I apologize for my interruption, but it is not only illogical to blame yourself for the entirety of the events that transpired on 2260.136, such a statement is simply false.” Spock paused. “Your judgment and decisive action ultimately resulted in the least loss of life when the intention of all other parties involved was our complete destruction or an ongoing mission of mass-murder, including the avoidance of an all-out war.”

Feeling a bit like he wanted to laugh, Jim shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. There’s always somebody to blame.”

Spock looked like he was gearing up for a response, but that nagging feeling hadn’t left him, and something Spock said struck Jim before the Vulcan got going again.

“What do you mean by ‘entirety of events’?” Jim asked, brow furrowed in thought.

Spock blinked, clearly not expecting that question. “Please clarify.”

“Just now, you said I shouldn’t blame myself for the _entirety of events_ , but before when I asked about how many we lost you called it an incident. It’s not like you to be so…” Jim waved a hand in the air, “Vague. So, what did you mean when you said that just now?”

Spock stiffened almost imperceptibly, which Jim assumed meant he’d probably stopped breathing or something, but his eyes flickered to the window before settling somewhere above Jim’s head.

Following his gaze, Jim registered the unfamiliar skyline for the first time. “Where are we?” He asked, flipping back the blanket with the intention of getting off of the damn biobed.

“Victory Memorial Hospital in Sacramento, California,” Spock supplied. “Jim, what are you—”

Something like dread pooled in Jim’s stomach as he drew his legs gingerly out from under the blanket, ignoring the sounds of Spock’s protests.

“Why not Starfleet Medical? I figured the brass would keep us pretty close after everything.” He swung his legs over the side and shook off the slight dizziness the movement caused, waving Spock off when he rounded the bed to prevent him from standing.

“I know I’ve been out of it, but it’s the standard place for injured officers, even long term. State of the art equipment and research and all that crap.” Jim slowly touched his bare feet to the ground, standing on shaky legs as he gripped the side of the biobed, peering out the window.

Spock momentarily aborted his attempt to assist. “Jim, you should not yet be out of—”

“Spock,” he said, continuing to ignore Spock’s hovering as he slowly moved the two steps to the window, supporting himself on the sill. “Is there something I should know?” He asked, shooting a look over his shoulder.

“Jim, perhaps if you would return to your bed we might speak. I find it difficult to explain,” Spock answered, just as Bones returned with an armful of scrubs and a pitcher of water.

“What’s difficult to—god _dammit_ , Jim! What the hell are you doing out of bed? Sit your ass back down!” Bones shoved the items onto a low table before practically jumping to Jim’s side across the room, Spock wisely moving out of his way.

Jim turned his annoyed expression on Bones, batting the doctor’s hands away even as his knees shook ominously beneath him. “What the hell is going on, Bones? Why aren’t we at Starfleet Medical? What _happened?"_ " He demanded.

Bones expression shuttered and he pulled his arms back, though he looked ready to try again. Jim could see how pale and drawn he was underneath the bluster. “Jim, you need to lie back down,” Bones started.

“No. _Fuck_ no,” Jim snarled, knuckles white where he gripped the sill. “Just _tell me what happened_. ‘Fleet discharge me while I was out? Take the ship? They want me court martialed? Persona non grata for breaking the flagship and a shiny new war cruiser? _What?_ ” He barked, breathing heavy.

Bones reached for him one last time, “If you would just—”

“Tell me!” Jim snapped.

Bones sent Spock a desperate look—what the _hell?_ —as the doctor backed off. Spock nodded his head, and Bones shoulders slumped in defeat. He sighed, looking suddenly very tired as he considered Jim from a couple steps away.

“While the _Enterprise_ was falling, Khan crashed the _Vengeance_ into Starfleet headquarters,” he said, sounding a bit dazed, like he didn’t believe what he was saying himself. “He leveled two square miles of the city.”

Jim stared at him, stunned into open mouthed shock.

“Starfleet medical wasn’t hit, luckily, but…” Bones trailed off, swallowing hard. “There are thousands of casualties. Every hospital in San Francisco was overflowing. We did what we could on the ship, but it was in bad shape. Had to take you here when we were ready.”

Spock and Bones stood there for a moment as it sunk in. Jim stared stupidly out the window, mouth still slightly agape as he worked through what Bones had just told him, the words _thousands of casualties_ ringing in his ears.

Blinking white spots from his vision, he looked up— _up?_ —into Bone’s face, pinched with worry.

“Jim. _Jim_ ,” his named sounded the way it did when Bones had been saying it for a while. “Goddammit, kid, I don’t need you passing out on me. Jim?” He prompted again, shining a light into his eyes, causing him to jerk his head away.

“Ow,” he groaned, blinking again to see that he was… on the floor. Oh.

“Spock, help me get him back in the bed,” Bones said.

“I can do it,” Jim protested weakly as he felt himself being lifted.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Bones grumbled as he pulled the blanket up to Jim’s chest, which Jim promptly pushed down again.

Several moments passed, only the sound of the tricorder and Bone’s shifting around the room checking consoles and readouts breaking the heavy silence. Jim could only stare stupidly at his hands where they lay in his lap.

“I’m sorry, Jim.” He felt Bones’ hand give his blanket-covered knee a squeeze, but didn’t look up at him.

“How—” Jim tried to speak, but his throat tightened and it came out like a croak. “How many dead?” He managed, feeling like a broken record.

“Jim,” Bones sighed, “You can’t do—” he started.

“How _many_ , goddamnit?” Jim snapped, his voice cracking. He clenched his jaw tight as he glared at Bones.

Bones scrubbed a weary hand over his face before answering. “Latest reports have just over four-thousand confirmed dead, hundreds still missing.”

The bottom dropped out of his stomach at the number, and he felt the irrational urge to laugh out loud at the sheer terrible irony of it all. _Four thousand_ , he mouthed the words as his eyes searched the ceiling, a ridiculous smile on his face, unable to believe he’d actually heard the words his friend spoke.

On the _Enterprise_ , Jim had died knowing he’d saved his crew from not one, but two madmen. Now he’d come back to life to see that ten times that many people had died because Khan had been on that _fucking_ ship. And Jim had been the one to put him there. His fists clenched weakly in the blanket as he looked out the window again, tired muscles trembling with the effort.

“I brought you some scrubs, Jim, if you feel like changing,” Bones said softly, indicating the pile on the table.

Jim nodded, but it was like the life he’d felt rush back into him when he’d gasped that first conscious breath had been sucked right back out, and all at once a bone deep weariness settled over him.

 _Four-thousand_.

“Thanks, doc,” Jim said, not looking at him, an ache settling in his chest. “I actually feel… _fuck_ ,” Jim rubbed a hand over his face. “Tired. Really tired, maybe we could finish this chat later?” He asked softly, eyes flicking over to Spock and then Bones before settling on the window once more.

“Yeah, sure Jim,” Bones sighed, patting his knee again. “I’ll look in on you soon. You know the drill with the call button if you need something. Don’t scare the nurses,” he admonished, but the humor sounded empty.

“Thanks, Bones,” Jim said quietly, knowing he was thanking his friend for more than just taking care of him.

“No problem, kid.” For a long moment, Bones just looked at him. “It’s good to have you back,” and with that, he left the room, leaving Jim alone with Spock again.

“You are not at fault for Khan’s assault on the city.” Spock said, surprising Jim.

“Don’t,” Jim sighed wearily, not looking at him. “Just… don’t. I just need some time to process this, okay? I really am tired.” He turned his head, forcing a small smile on his face as Spock made to leave.

The Vulcan nodded, not a trace of hurt or rejection or anything in his demeanor. “I understand,” he said, almost like he really did, and turned to follow McCoy’s path out of the room.

Watching the Vulcan’s retreating back, it occurred to him that he had no idea what Spock had been through after he’d last seen him in engineering, and really? He was being an ungrateful son of a bitch, for someone who had come back from the dead and all. Mentally kicking himself, he called after Spock.

“Wait.”

Stopping short, Spock turned, hands clasped behind his back, eyebrows raised in question.

“Thank you,” Jim’s eyes were bright as they held Spock’s. “For being there. At the end.” He swallowed thickly, feeling something twist in his gut at the words, even though Spock’s face betrayed nothing.

Spock looked like he wanted to say something, maybe a lot of things, but when he did speak it hit Jim like a kick to the solar plexus.

“I could not have left you,” Spock said, the furrow in his brow betraying the fact that he was likely bewildered by the words as much as Jim.

When Jim said nothing more, Spock resumed his exit and Jim was alone in the room.

Feeling hollowed out and exhausted, Jim lay back on the bed and closed his eyes to the afternoon light filtering into the room.

This wasn’t a win. Maybe he’d stopped Marcus from starting an all-out war with the Klingons. Maybe he’d saved his ship, most of the crew. He’d given his life when it was all he had left, just like his dad.

_(Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved eight-hundred lives)_

But there were still eighty-six people who’d gotten a letter from Starfleet with hollow words instead of a comm saying ‘ _I’m okay’_. He wondered for a second if Spock had put Jim’s name on them. It wasn’t Spock who’d gotten them into the mess, after all. He’d want to know who to rave and blame and piss at if it were _his_ family. Well, his family in another life.

_(If anybody deserves a second chance, it’s Jim Kirk)_

There were morgues and hospitals filled with the evidence of his failure.

_(I dare you to do better)_

Jim Kirk didn’t believe in no-win scenarios. Problem was, he’d been playing a different game and he hadn’t known until he’d already made his moves, genius and desperate and perfect in their own little bubble. Without mercy they’d been wrenched into the bigger picture, and now he didn’t know who’d won.

_(It’s gonna be okay)_

He figured the body count was a decent scoreboard. In the end—this time—it was all that counted.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a week of nightmares and now panic attacks, Jim was starting to wonder if he’d lost something in the warp core or the transfusion that would've let him feel anything else.

Chapter 2

* * *

 

Jim didn’t see Spock again until after discharge.

Apparently, being Acting Captain in the aftermath of an unprecedented scandal and catastrophic tragedy left a lot of people asking you questions and obnoxious meetings with people of higher rank. Jim was gracious enough to feel bad that Spock was handling it, but also the fortitude to acknowledge that, as physically well as he was progressing, the Vulcan’s calm logic in the face of…everything, would better serve whatever camera he spoke into than the zombified visage Jim managed to project when people came to see him. Spock might seem cold to the average Broadcast-Vid viewer, but he had the facts. He’d been in the middle of it and, most importantly, he’d already been grilled by anyone who might want to talk to him.

Bones came and went.

He was a doctor, first and foremost, and he’d happily—fervently with a dash of desperation—taken up the call for volunteers and medical assistance and was helping Victory Memorial cope with the influx of both long term and newly admitted trauma patients. His knowledge of xenobiology and experience on a Starship were enough to have the hospital all but conscripting him into a permanent position. Bones’ (and Starfleet’s) answer had and continued to be a polite thanks, but no thanks.

It was long past the time when they’d given up hope of finding more Terran survivors, but there was still the chance that maybe the Vulcans and other hardier species were hanging on. Local hospitals weren’t overflowing anymore, but coupled with the continued day-to-day emergencies and a lack of personnel, victims were still being shuttled to outlying cities. The emergency shuttle transport from San Francisco was not as long as it might have been before such efficiency measures were put into place in the wake of the attack, but Jim knew when shit went sideways.

He could always tell when Bones would drop by Jim’s room at whatever heinous hour of the morning and just sit by his bed, hair damp from a hospital shower, that he’d lost someone in the ER. Someone had been pulled from the wreckage too late, the trip had been too long, or some other god awful ridiculous tragedy had wormed its way into the fabric of their existence and Bones had to deal with the physical fallout of more senseless violence. It was an ironic facsimile of their Saurian brandy sessions in Bones’ office when shit hit the fan. They’d never lost anybody on the _Enterprise_ , but that didn’t mean they never sent anybody home because Bones couldn’t fix them.

Those nights at the hospital, Bones would come by his room when he was off shift or just needed a minute, and sit.

_“I just lost a Vulcan. Jesus, Jim. Just—a few hours earlier and I could have saved her.”_

And god, it hurt to know that those who’d survived Nero hadn’t made it through a second madman’s idea of vengeance. He wondered if that Vulcan woman had a son, if that son would grieve the loss of his mother with that same stoicism he’d seen in Spock, or if the weight of another tragedy was too much for a child’s logic to contain.

Sometimes Bones came when Jim was asleep—turns out that a transfusion to replace every irradiated cell in your body tended to contribute to easy exhaustion—but more often he was awake and staring out the window at the hateful, unfamiliar skyline.

What Bones did when Jim was asleep, he didn’t know, but he’d wake up to an empty room with the scent of Bones’ surgical soap lingering, the extra chair closer to his bed than he’d remembered. When he was awake enough to blink at his friend through bleary eyes, he offered Bones’ a hand—he had no words of comfort, no one did—and the doctor would wordlessly take it, clutching Jim’s hand in his, reveling in the solid strength of a firm grip, fingers on Jim’s pulse; the evidence of vitality in someone he’d saved… a life that hadn’t been lost.

Jim had the decency to feel bad that he wanted out.

It wasn’t just the heavy, grief stricken atmosphere that was slowly crushing him from the outside in—the drawn smiles of the attending nurses who’d lost sisters and children, the legless first-responder across the hall who’d spent four days under the debris and might not regain his lost limbs—that was probably hanging over every being in the Federation with a comm signal or vid access. It was the nagging sensation that the longer he lay in this biobed, the longer he staved off the inevitable fallout of every mistake he’d made from Nibiru to Khan.

Mostly, he knew he was delaying the inevitable.

Every scenario had played itself out in his head so many times he was practically swimming with the triplicate versions of their mission to Kronos that niggled at his consciousness. The ways that he’d screwed the pooch on that mission had been too many to count. Except, actually: they hadn’t. He’d made no fewer than three monumental fuck-ups in that whole mission.

The first: ignoring Bones. Maybe he’d have been able to convince him not to take the mission in the first place.

The second: ignoring Scotty. He’d trusted the man to make off the cuff modifications to the ship in more life-or-death situations than he could count, and he’d all but kicked the man off of his ship. Fuck, the _Enterprise_ was as much Scotty’s as it was Jim’s, and Scotty had saved their collective asses.

The third, god. He hated thinking about the third, because it made him sick. It made him feel stupid, and naïve, and exactly like he’d felt when he’d basically told Spock to take over because Jim was not fit to be in the chair.

_(You don’t respect the chair.)_

He shouldn’t have taken the fucking mission in the first place.

No, he shouldn’t have _demanded_ the mission in the first place. He barely knew Marcus, hadn’t done a scrap of research about John Harrison, hadn’t conferred with anyone, had just holed himself up in his Starfleet temp housing with a cheap bottle of whiskey and tried not to think about how the only person who believed in him was dead, and how much he wanted to _break_ the person who had done it.

If he’d just… done his job. If he hadn't isolated himself. If he hadn’t been…

Compromised.

The word rang in his skull. He hadn't been fit to Captain the _Enterprise_ from the moment he’d laid eyes on Pike dead on the ground.

He tried to take a step back, to be the objective observer, but he couldn’t. Every time he tried to pry his mind out of the swirling darkness and think about his decisions and the last conversation he’d had with Pike, panic clawed at his chest and alarms blared in his ears and he was fighting unconsciousness before anyone would _listen_ … if they only knew.

Bones never told him how many times they had to sedate him. Whenever he woke up, he was groggy and cotton-mouthed and couldn’t retrace his thoughts.

Possible psychosis aside—really, since when had Jim _not_ been the subject of a psychology student’s hard on—for no reason he could tell, Bones had a terrible, massive vendetta against him, the goal of which was to keep him in the hospital as long as possible.

His good friend (read: traitorous bastard) the doctor demanded that he remain in the hospital for seven days— _“I need to observe your vitals and recovery for at least another two weeks. You were dead for Christ’s sake!” “Mostly dead, Bones. You said so yourself.” “Dammit, Jim!”_ —and only after a surreptitious second opinion and a kind of foreboding, black envelope sort of message from the Admiralty that essentially claimed exclusive ownership of Jim once he was released, did Bones make the apoplectic concession that Jim could leave.

Well, Jim might have managed to secure official release authorization less than twenty-four hours before _that_ message appeared, but he wasn’t giving Bones any more ammunition than he needed at the moment. He’d figure it out and bitch at Jim later, might even bring booze.

It was a win-win, really.

With the full weight of the last four weeks bearing down, he thought that maybe he should have given Bones his head with the whole internment, thing. Was indefinite medical confinement preferable to facing the Admiralty in the aftermath of Khan’s attack? Marcus’ betrayal? A potential interplanetary brouhaha at which he was the fleshy scapegoat center?

Bones—and Spock and Sulu and Uhura and Chekov and even Scotty—had been debriefed weeks ago. With the Nibiru debacle in hindsight, he’d been assured that, once again, Spock had relayed the happenings aboard the _Enterprise_ without error or subterfuge.

He’d been banking on that, actually. Jim had no desire to cover his own ass this time around, and Marcus had been dealing in some epically shady shit, so best to be honest about what they dug up, considering the fallout from this particular bit of fresh new hell was shaping up to be astronomic.

That is, apparently, with the initial exception of Dr. McCoy’s Miracle _bring Jim back to life_ serum.

Yeah, that had been a bit of a surprise.

Nobody had been willing to risk scrambling his atoms while he was in a cryostasis that they didn’t fully understand, so they hadn’t moved him until he’d regained brain and basic vital function. Apparently, in a fit of combined scientific genius, McCoy and Spock had managed to scrape together a rough version of the serum Bones eventually perfected from Khan’s blood as they painstakingly beamed down the rest of the crazy fucker’s crew to a secure location—some ridiculous excuse Scotty put on with his infinite ability to tamper with transporter technology, claiming ancient electronics and crazy unstable biology—to successfully disguise what amounted to a resurrection under plasma-substitute and blood-transfusions.

At the time, at least. Once Jim had been moved off of the ship and Bones needed to continue working his medical genius, the theoretical cat was out of the bag.

Jim was better off being grateful and not knowing. Really. It took Spock, McCoy and a handful of science minions _ten hours_ to bring Jim out of cryostasis and brain death. Yeah, not bad for a medbay smashed to bits and science labs operating with three limping consoles to its name. Granted, they’d thoroughly milked Jim’s continued critical condition for all it was worth, keeping him on the _Enterprise_ for as long as possible with lofty claims of life-threatening transporters and shuttle rides. While it hadn’t been Spock specifically that “perpetrated a necessary deception”, Jim considered that Spock and everyone else had pretty much lied to Starfleet so they could save his life. Not quite a flagrant violation of the Prime Directive, but close enough for Jim’s eyes to get a bit misty.

And _really_ , bully for Khan’s crazy augmented blood making it easy on them all during the entire ordeal. Sixteen hours after Kirk had been declared dead and they had almost crashed into Earth’s surface in a fireball of federation sanctioned death, Acting Captain Spock and his crew had indulged in some highly creative posturing when bringing a _comatose_ (not dead) Captain Kirk off the ship when the Fleet had declared them cleared (more like when Spock had told them they were ready) for space dock.

The amount of conveniently fudged records had to be staggering.

Even more convenient was that he didn’t have to cop to knowing anything about any of it, because he’d been dead _—“You were_ mostly _dead.” “Bones, enough with the Princess Bride references. I’m not the dread pirate.”_ —at the time.

When he was wheeled out of the hospital to the dusky grey of a Starfleet passenger car, he sighed heavily, patting Bones hand where it gripped his shoulder in solidarity and giving his friend’s hand a reassuring squeeze that he didn’t feel himself.

 

* * *

 

The debrief was hell.

God, he should have seen that coming. Jim couldn’t even explain it. Maybe it had been his sojourn in the hospital, maybe he was experiencing the residual effects of the serum, but he was so far from okay that he’d been legitimately surprised the panel interviewing him hadn’t postponed after the first time he’d lost it.

They’d asked him about Pike.

It was a standard enough question—expected, even. Jim had _known_ they’d ask him about Pike. About their relationship, about the fallout from Nibiru, about Pike and Marcus. It was a debrief, not a psych eval.

They’d asked him about Khan’s attack on the command center.

His pulse had spiked and he’d stopped breathing for a second. _Of course. Of course they’d ask me about this. I disappeared two days later with a Federation vessel and orders from a rogue Admiral… they never heard anything._

There was so much they wanted to know.

_When did Admiral Pike tell you about your assignment as his First Officer?_

Jim had frozen, staring into space, absolutely lost in the memory of Pike sitting next to him at the bar, the conversation he’d replayed again and again in his head until it flashed before him like a high speed holovid.

_(It’s gonna be okay, son)_

He hadn’t realized he was unresponsive until the ensign recording the session had physically shaken him out of his stupor.

“Commander? Commander?” She’d asked softly, hand on his shoulder. He startled into awareness and promptly sat down into a chair as his vision swam.

“Commander Kirk? Can you answer the question?” A hard voice asked.

Jim swallowed past a lump and building nausea as the panel of six Admirals and officials came back into focus. He realized belatedly that his vision swam because of the moisture leaking out of his eyes, and dashed a hand across them quickly.

“I—uh—sorry, yeah. What was the question?”

That had been the first time. They kept probing, each question as direct and unsympathetic as the last. It was something he might have been able to appreciate at one point, but he felt so raw. Why hadn’t he stayed longer with Bones?

_What was precisely the nature of your relationship with the Admiral?_

Jim had suffered through the battery of inquiries, answering to the best of his ability, with facts and neutral observations and all the decorum he could muster when he still felt like he might fall over at some point when he wasn’t paying attention to his balance.

But that.

“I don’t understand the nature of your question, Admiral Barnett. Could you be more specific?” Jim asked through clenched teeth, palms sweaty as he held them pressed together behind his back.

Appearing flustered, the Admiral went on.

“What I mean, is, what was the nature of your relationship outside the chain of Starfleet command?”

Jim’s eyes widened, and he had to stop himself from letting his mouth fall open. “Ex _cuse_ me?” He asked, before he could think better of the utterance.

“I understand that this line of questioning is uncomfortable—”

“Wait, wait,” Jim held up his hand, pressing down on the fury. “Are you asking me if… if Admiral Pike and I were _involved?_ ” Jim balked.

“Not precisely, I just—”

“No,” Jim interrupted. God, he was winning himself all kinds of brownie points today. “Chris—Admiral Pike, was my academic advisor and my mentor. Yes, we had a close relationship. He is the one who recruited me to Starfleet when I was a fuck-up picking fights in a Riverside bar,” Jim mentally cursed himself as he realized that was way more information than he’d needed to provide, and damaging at that.

“He was a significant part of your life in Starfleet, then?” Another Admiral prompted. He flicked his gaze over to the voice, taking in the closely shorn hair of the tall, dark skinned woman who’d asked the question. It didn’t look like she was accusing him of something, but you didn’t make it that far in the ‘Fleet without a damn good poker face.

“Yes,” Jim answered boldly. “As my advisor, I don’t see how our relationship could have been anything but close. He guided me through most of my three years on the command track. It was a tough curriculum, and I wouldn’t have succeeded without him.”

“I very much doubt that, Commander,” the Admiral—Marshall, he read on her nameplate—answered, the hint of a smile playing at her mouth. It threw him off. “Moving on, Admiral Barnett,” she said, not looking at her colleague

Clearing his throat, Barnett sent her a withering look that she either didn’t notice or couldn’t be bothered to meet.

_What was your motivation for approaching Admiral Marcus about John Harrison?_

Right.

Steeling himself, he didn’t glance at Admiral Marshall as he ploughed through his story from Scotty to Marcus to Khan and back to Marcus. Over the remaining four hours, he didn’t leave anything out, answered the questions they asked for clarification, only managed to get lost in his thoughts four or five times, grit his teeth through a panic attack and dutifully refrained from throwing up until he was out of the doors and in the restroom down the hall when it was over.

Sitting half collapsed against the wall of a single person restroom, Jim breathed through the bitter tang of bile in his mouth and tried to catch his breath. Gasps turned into half sobs, and he muffled the sound in his forearm as he braced it against his knee, trying to reign in the whirlwind of his emotions.

God. He’d known he’d fucked it up, but saying it, _talking_ about it with Starfleet brass like—like it was any other mission, like life could just _go on_ in the face of everything that had happened, the body count.

But it was, and they had, Jim realized with a hiccough that almost caused him to retch again. He wiped his face on his sleeve and tried to focus, hands shaking as the dredges of panic slipped away.

Sapped of his energy and without the adrenaline of false panic to sustain him, he felt hollow and tired. After a week of nightmares and now panic attacks, he was starting to wonder if he’d lost something in the warp core or the transfusion that would’ve let him feel anything else. 

Too numb to care about the polite, but insistent, knocking on the door, Jim stared at nothing and ruminated on the one clear thought in his head.  
  
He was so, so fucked.

**Author's Note:**

> I have visions of an epic adventure, so there will be more to this story; _much_ more. Pairings and trajectories to be revealed...


End file.
